Edited by Sandra Alland

Poems by Lila Matsumoto

Any minute now a pair of hands will crest the hill.We’ll know, then,when they’ve obscured the gloaming light.Sheep eyes return to willow-wispsand the barn owl’s call is really a child being eaten.Turning a sudden corner, something smalland terrible is assuming a formas when a sound, veined and fanged,puts a cold and wet toe into the room.Light follows, a long rectanglefrom hallway to interior, where,yellow, dust particles scatter indifferent to the confirmation.Something which had been approaching.

Yard

Evening spider tiny emperorCasts off on golden threadover the field of grass.Slowlyslowly the skythe briery hedge and four dwarf shrubsbruise black.Shirts on the drying line hardeninto nightshape.

The Day

Notthe sinking-stone worryBut the free memory of the day!

The pedal I pushis my foothold on morning,beating the cannon, the creepof a benign and faceless blank.The words I mean to sayare running beside me rushing into the gutter. Othershave taken holiday to make villagesin the sand.ComeBack. Words come back.I want to intend,to cleave the air with sure-foot.Surely, wherever there is light,people are growing their meanings.

Sandra Alland’s Jacket2 feature on new Scottish poets collects the work of nine poets from Glasgow and Edinburgh in an effort to track current trends in varied and explorative poetics, from Alison Smith’s British Sign Language poetry to Colin Herd’s humorous and versatile texts to Marvo Men’s performance pieces — and much more.